CHINA: Of Tolerance

In Nanking last week China's first National
Assembly convened; its 3,000 members will elect the nation's President
and Vice President. The occasion, which marked China's precarious
transition from one-party regime to parliamentary government, was not
without incident. Ten Kuomintang dissenters who were under party
censure for getting themselves elected as "independents" staged a
hunger strike in the gold-&-cream Assembly hall. Cunning officials
placed trays of tea, cakes and dumplings before them, to no avail. The
"irregulars'" spokesman bought a white coffin with black stripes,
threatened to bring it into the Assembly as a token of protest.